Landmark South Shields pub site in line for £200,000 transformation

Greth Crickmer

An historic South Tyneside pub which closed six years ago is set for a new lease of life under plans for a £200,000 modern transformation.

The Victorian-era Criterion, at the junction of King Street and Ocean Road, South Shields, is being turned into a bar and bed and breakfast.

New owners Chris Pickering and Kevin McKeith outside The Criterion

Drinkers will get to savour a side of the building that few may remember under plans drawn up by entrepreneurs Chris Pickering and Kevin McKeith.

They are to open the former boozer’s three upper floors - with the ground floor that once housed the bar remaining a Ladbrokes shop.

The pals have a 20-year lease for the landmark site and plan to have the first floor bar where food will be served open by September.

A six-room bed and breakfast, which will operate on the top two floors should open by the end of the year.

Chris, 30, who has lived in South Shields for over a decade, said: “I’d had my eye on this site for a long time and it’s great to be in there. We have found so much that is original from around the 1860s when it opened, and it is beautiful stuff.

“We want to keep and restore as much as we can, and that means bringing in specialists to carry out that work.

“The Criterion was once the place to be and we want to make it the heart of the community again.”

Chris and Kevin, 37, also from South Shields, have founded the Two Pints Ltd company to operate The Criterion in what is the largest renovation project either has attempted.

Kevin has managed bars in North Shields and developed smaller properties, while Chris is manager of a national youth organisation and director of Jarrow’s Community Homes group.

The Criterion is believed to have opened in the early 1860s and closed in 2012.

Original features found include cornices, a fireplace, light fittings and the first floor’s wooden bar.